New temporary transit signs and maps, also known as wayfinding signs, have recently been installed at the concourse and street levels of the Powell BART/Muni station. The signs are part of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s Regional Mapping and Wayfinding Project across all nine Bay Area counties to help make transit journeys easier to understand for both current and new riders. The Wayfinding Project is also part of a larger effort to improve customer-focused transit coordination through the Regional Network Management initiative of Plan Bay Area 2050, a long range plan that establishes the nine-county Bay Area region’s vision for land use and transportation.
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission, in partnership with BART and the SFMTA among all of the region’s transit operators, are developing wayfinding signs to make maps, real-time information systems and other transit communications clearer and more consistent across transit agencies, as well as make riding transit around the Bay Area more connected and easier for travelers throughout the region.
New features include:
- Standardized colors, new styles and labels indicating how often a bus or train arrives at a particular stop
Directional signs on a train or transit platform show the name of the facility, directions to exits, and services and destinations that use that platform
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Powell Street Station was selected in the pilot because it is among the most complex multimodal stations on the West Coast – it provides transfers between two levels of underground trains and also surface-level transfers to buses, cable cars and historic streetcars. These temporary signs are expected to remain in place until early July.
New maps and signs were previously installed at the El Cerrito del Norte BART station, the Santa Rosa Transit Mall and the nearby Santa Rosa Downtown SMART station.
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission is collecting public comments for the next stage of the project through their online form.
New wayfinding signs will be installed at seven additional locations across the Bay Area into 2026, including a full retrofit of Powell station wayfinding.